Watching the Dance by Lyra

Watching the Dance

On some signal that he had apparently missed, all the others had left; he found himself alone in the darkening forest.

It was too early yet for nightfall, he was certain of that, so they really should have told him. Granted, he had been hidden well, but they could have called, right? Instead, they had just disappeared. With the sunlight gone, the forest looked forbidding and eerie, all colours drained to greys and black. Between the dark silhouettes of the leaves he could make out dark clouds. A storm was brewing. No wonder that they all had gone home – but they really should have told him!
He grimly told himself that he did not need them anyway, but after half a day spent running through the woods and playing hide-and-seek, he was not certain that he would find his way home on his own. In fact, he was not even certain in which direction to go. He might be lucky - or he might walk in circles forever. He might have to sleep on the cold ground in the undergrowth, without a roof to ward off dew or rain. There were no vicious animals in these woods, but come winter he would probably freeze; he did not even have a cloak with him, let alone a blanket.
His eyes welled up as he imagined the future: Nothing to eat but roots, and nothing to drink but icy water that would sting his teeth and taste of moss and dirt, while his faithless playfellows had their nice warm meals and sweet brews and soft blankets... and in the end he would die, alone, in the forests.

A rumble of thunder tore him from his musings and alerted him to a more immediate danger. The treetops were now swaying heavily in the breeze, and the clouds were almost black; the storm must be imminent.
He huddled underneath a beech tree, trying to tell himself that the lightning probably wouldn't strike him, small as he was. He was nonetheless terrified. When the first flash of lightning tore the clouds and the rain began to pour, he could no longer keep back the tears.

"You are not afraid of the lightning, are you? A strong boy like you!" said a voice behind him. It sounded like a woman's voice, and indeed when he looked up – hastily sniffing back tears – he saw a young woman (if she was young; it was so hard to tell with these Elves) who smiled at him encouragingly. She was barefoot, and wore only a simple shift that was already drenched, which did not seem to bother her. Bravado kicked in automatically. "Of course I'm not afraid."
She did not call his obvious bluff, instead saying, "I thought not!" as though she believed him.
An enormous peal of thunder followed her words, making him flinch and duck. "I'm not scared," he nonetheless insisted, wiping his eyes angrily. "You just startled me." Another gust of wind shook the treetops. Leaves, cupules and small twigs joined the raindrops on their downward journey. A leaf landed on the elf-woman's head, plastered to her hair by the rain. She appeared not to notice.
"Well, now you need no longer be startled," she said. "But come, we shouldn't stand around here like this. We'd better find a good place to watch!"
"Watch?" he repeated, frowning in confusion. "Watch what?"
"Why, the dance of the Belain (1), of course!"

* * *

She had led him to a low tree with branches that offered a nice platform, and she had helped him up. Now he was clinging to the branch on which he sat, wondering whether this was really the right place to be in a thunderstorm. Although the tree was not nearly as high as the others around it, a fall from this height would nonetheless be painful at the very least, and the wind was shaking the branches so much that he felt almost nauseous. The elf-woman, meanwhile, clambered around effortlessly. From somewhere she had procured two wooden cups and dried fruit packed in a bag of wax-cloth, holding out a handful of fruit and a cup to him. Courtesy demanded that he accept the offer, but it was hard enough to let go of the branch with even just one hand; both were out of the question. His hand shook as he took the proffered cup. "Thank you, lady," he said, and his voice was shaking as well.
She laughed. "I am no lady! But I have neglected to introduce myself." Lightning flashed up, followed by thunder so loud that he could not hear her next words.
"What?" he shouted against the noise, shivering – only, of course, from cold, he told himself. He was thoroughly drenched after all. Those Elves always forgot how easily mortals felt cold.
"I said, we could play a game of riddles for it!"
He grimaced. He was no good at riddles even at the best of times, and right now he could hardly think for fear. "I'd rather not!" he called against the howling wind and rumbling thunder.
"Aw, come on!" the elf-woman called. "I shall make it very easy, too!" She sounded slightly disappointed, and he realised that he was entirely dependent on her goodwill; otherwise he would hardly make it down this tree in one piece, let alone find his way home.
"All right," he said grudgingly. She smiled.
"I'll make it easy," she assured him again. "Let me see. Ah yes. A leaf, a leaf, another leaf – that's me! There, surely that isn't hard?"
He gave her a blank stare. "A leaf?"
"No, no, no – a leaf, a leaf, another leaf."
When he continued to stare, frowning, she finally sighed. "Oh well. Nel-las, of course. (2) And don't worry, you don't have to make up a riddle for your name. I know who you are."
"Oh?"
"Why, yes! Mortals are rather rare around here, after all. So unless you strayed in by chance like another Beren, you must be Túrin."
He nodded, feeling somewhat embarrassed, but was spared from replying by a particularly loud thunderclap. When it was followed immediately after by another bolt of lightning, impossibly bright, and further thunder, he could not help crying out.

Nellas laughed. "Do not fear! I told you it was only the Belain dancing!" Another flash of lightning rent the sky. "Look, that was the lady Elbereth," she cried while the thunder rolled and rumbled, "and now you can hear Tulchas (3) laughing! And here," she spread her arms as if to embrace the rain and the wind, "are the lords Manu and Ulbas..."
Túrin stared at the dark clouds doubtfully. He had been told that the lady Elbereth was brighter and more beautiful than he could imagine; the lightning was certainly very bright, but nothing else. He said as much.
Nellas grinned again, an expression of wild glee in her eyes. "But that is what 'more beautiful than you can imagine' means – beauty that you cannot grasp, cannot even see! Look, there she is again – how fast she can jump!" And she laughed with delight while the tree shook its branches against the gale, and while a sharp, brutal clap of thunder seemed to shake the clouds in reply.
Túrin remained unconvinced. "And that really was the lord Tulchas?" he asked.
"No, no, silly, Tulchas laughs longer. That was the lord Achul, swinging his hammer. - In sport!" she said quickly when she saw him flinch. "Not in wrath! They are but dancing, young Túrin. Do not fear! They will not hurt you!"
"When I was still with Mother, a man we knew was struck by lightning," Túrin said, not certain whether he could believe her. "He died – he burned completely! They only found his boots and the rest of his spear!"
A shadow briefly darkened Nellas' eyes. "Yes, sometimes that happens," she said. "I think they do not always know their own strength." Túrin blinked. He had heard that phrase about himself or his playfellows on occasion, generally when someone had been hurt – but he certainly would not have expected to hear it applied to the Powers. He glanced skywards anxiously, in case they were about to take offense.
"But that sort of thing won't happen here," Nellas went on, oblivious to his renewed worry. "Our Queen won't let it. I wouldn't recommend you to climb on a tree during a thunderstorm in any other forest!" Her lips quirked upwards in a wry grin.

Túrin still clung to his branch, but he began to calm slightly while he tried to recognise the difference between the thunderclaps – Tulchas' rumbling laughter, and the hooves of Araw's white horse, and the clang of Achul's hammer. Once he got the hang of it, he was clapping his hands along with Nellas when they saw a particularly spectacular bolt of lightning, laughed when the thunder seemed to rumble on forever, and stuck out his tongue to catch raindrops. Finally, the lightning grew weaker, and the thunder sounded from further away: The storm was almost spent. The trees no longer shook so violently; eventually the rain, too, withdrew. Túrin watched, breathless from excitement rather than fear now, as the clouds began to disperse.

"The Belain are going home," Nellas said, sounding as though she regretted the fact. "And you should probably go home as well; they will be worried about you, I daresay. Do you know the way?"
Normally, Túrin would now have blustered and insisted that of course he knew the way. After the draining storm, however, his pride lay dormant, and so he only grimaced unhappily while he admitted that he didn't.
"I will bring you to the Gates," Nellas said. "But first I will fetch a blanket for you; you're shivering! Wait here!"

He waited, looking up at the sky. It was now bright blue again, and the colours of the forest had returned. The raindrops that hung and dripped from the leaves glittered like diamonds in the sun. He was cold, he realised, wrapping his arms around himself; but nothing worse had happened. Aside from his wet clothing, he had survived the storm unscathed. His playfellows would surely be impressed when they learned that he had been almost all alone in a great thunderstorm, while they had run home like frightened rabbits. He smiled at the sky.
"I am not afraid," he said, and this time he meant it.

Chapter End Notes

(1) Belain: The Sindarin equivalent of Quenya Valar. I am usually not a fan of random Sindarin all over the place, such as the notorious ellon/ ellyn/ elleth/ ellith business (well, and normally I write in Quenya-speaking environments, where ellon etc. would be absurd anyway), but since Valar tends to go un-Englished, I figured I'd have to use the Sindarin version here after all. They are not, after all, speaking Quenya in Doriath... ;)

(2) I am not certain that Nellas' name is supposed to mean "three leaves" - it might also be a past tense form of the verb for "to ring", suggesting that someone was ringing a bell while she was begotten/born, or that her laughter reminded her parents of a ringing bell, or what-do-I-know. Or maybe it means yet something else that Tolkien never deigned to write down. Who knows. As riddles are permitted to play on words and double meanings, I suppose it doesn't ultimately matter anyway. Just don't quote me when you decide to translate Nellas as "three leaves" in the future! ;)

(3) We are not given the names of most of the Valar in Sindarin. Technically I guess it is possible that the Sindar just used the same names we're given in the Valaquenta (i.e., mostly Quenya or quenyaicised Valarin), but with the great amount of mercilessly translated names in pretty much all of Tolkien's works (including Sindarin versions of the hobbit-names in The Lord of the Rings, and all the Sindarinised names of the Noldor throughout the Silmarillion), I personally find it more likely that the Sindar would at the very least have adapted the names of the Valar to fit the rest of their language, either based on the Quenya versions (if those were formed during the Great Journey or even earlier), or from the Valarin 'originals' (learned via Melian). At the very least we're told that the Sindar commonly say Elbereth for Varda, and we're also given Oromë's Sindarin name in The War of the Jewels (Araw), so some translation/adaptation definitely appears to have taken place. I have therefore taken the liberty of producing variants of the names of the Valar that would be more pleasant to pronounce for Sindarin tongues than the Quenya names.
I have here assumed that Manwë's name might have undergone the same development as Elwë's, thus Manu in analogy to Elu. A variant of Súlimo would also be feasible, but I don't know enough Sindarin to know what to stick to the súl (which might have to be þúl anyway...? Yeah. Not going there.)...
Other Valar whom I shamelessly translated for this story (because even short stories must be linguistically consistent, right? >_>) are Ulmo -> Ulbas; Aulë -> Achul; Tulkas -> Tulchas.
(Ironically, the attempt to make the names sound somewhat more "Sindarin" brings them closer back to Valarin. I totally blame Melian.)
Bloody Sindar.